India is getting ready to create another flutter in the arms bazaar — 10
months after it selected French firm Dassault Aviation for a $18-billion
( Rs. 99,000 crore) deal to equip the air force with Rafale fighters.
This time, India will spend more than $10 billion ( Rs. 55,000 crore) to
scale up the navy’s undersea combat capabilities — inducting
next generation submarines — to deter China, which has more than 50
conventional submarines in its fleet, but nearly two-thirds of those are
outdated.

Navy chief Admiral DK Joshi said the defence ministry’s acquisition
council had given the go-ahead for buying six submarines under a project
codenamed P-75I. He said a global tender would be floated “very soon”.

Already, six Scorpene submarines are being built at the Mazagon Dock Ltd with technology from DCNS under a $4.3-billion ( Rs. 23,562 crore) project called P-75.

Joshi said the new subs – bigger than the Scorpene – would be
equipped with air-independent propulsion systems to recharge their
batteries without having to surface for more than three weeks. The subs
would also have land attack missile capability, defence minister AK
Antony told Parliament on Tuesday.

India is also forging ahead with its INS Arihant-class nuclear-missile subs shown above. Australia is seeking to design and build a dozen new subs for its navy.Even tiny Singapore has six submarines. They're everywhere and yet no one seems to have enough of them, not yet.